Colorado State to play Alabama in 2013

Colorado State athletic director Jack Graham was in Chicago at an alumni event prior to the men's basketball team's game against University of Illinois-Chicago on Saturday. During that event, he announced that the football team will be playing Alabama on Sept. 21, 2013.

This game was rumored to be happening back in mid-November, but back then, the deal was to be two games at Alabama, one in 2013 and in 2015. That same report said that Colorado State would be making $1 million per game.

This matchup allows current Colorado State head coach Jim McElwain to head back to Alabama, where he was the offensive coordinator under Nick Saban from 2008-11. This is one of those games where Colorado State will get paid for a loss; there is likely no way that the Rams will have improved enough to challenge the Crimson Tide.

Colorado State's 2013 schedule is already full with four non-conference games, so that means that there will be some shifting of games to later years.

The four non-conference games on their 2013 schedule are Colorado to open the season, at Tulsa on Sept. 7, home against Cal Poly on Sept. 14 and then another home game against UTEP on Sept. 28. The likely game to be dropped is the road game at Tulsa, because there is little to no chance that Colorado State would play less than six home games.